


Follow That Pumpkin!

by nickel710



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Pumpkins, What pumpkins?, alternate timeline to sburb, science girls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 03:50:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11176410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nickel710/pseuds/nickel710
Summary: Jade is determined to catch whoever is stealing her pumpkins red-handed!





	Follow That Pumpkin!

**Author's Note:**

> If you like music with your fics, how about [This Pumpkin!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBKV8n6fnY0)

Approximately eighteen months have passed since you decided enough is enough and began your crusade to catch the culprit responsible for disappearifying your pumpkins.

Eighteen months and thirty-eight pumpkins later, you think you’ve just had a ‘Eureka!’ moment. Which is totally not something you would ever say, duh.

Your name is Jade Harley, and you are ready at last to put an end to the bleeding. This is it, folks. Science is about to go down.

It wasn’t easy, figuring out how to trace the disappearification waves back to their source. The first several months of your endeavor had been entirely devoted to a trial-and-error based system of developing the equipment needed to pick up trace energy signatures left behind by your vanishing gourds. The first time you had successfully captured the evidence you needed, you hadn’t believed your eyes.

If you had access to the mainland academic systems, you no doubt would have blown away scientists twice your age with this accomplishment. Then again, someone out there had figured out how to disappearify pumpkins, so maybe you were just behind on the times.

Next step was making the data _mean_ something. This meant collecting a lot more of it, to start. You improved your instruments for measurement. Made sense of what the waves could mean. Discovered by the eighth post-breakthrough pumpkin disappearification that there was always a series of static numbers within the feed of information you were now picking up.

It took another three months and nine more pumpkins to feel confident that you were looking at what was essentially a set of space/time coordinates. Even after you started to believe this could possibly be it, you had your doubts. That was… unheard of. And yet… if someone were consistently targeting your pumpkins, as you suspected, that person would have to be able to feed their disappearifier the space/time coordinates of your island.

You went back to the data. You found a second set of coordinates, less noticeable because they were less identical. But sure enough, this set of coordinates reflected the location and _time_ of the pumpkin that disappeared. 

Now you could work backwards. This pumpkin disappeared at exactly 9:08 PM on 6/12/17 from (-0.955766 -174.759521), and your data had corresponding numbers. With a few comparative pumpkins, you could now convert the space/time coordinates that your instruments were reporting to GPS coordinates and a time and date.

Things seemed to stall out as you found yourself looking at dates four hundred years in the future. Was someone actually snatching your pumpkins _four hundred years from now_? They were either desperate for food, a mischief-maker, or both.

Honestly. How rude. Steal someone else’s squash!

The GPS coordinates were startling for other reasons.

\--gardenGnostic [GG] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] at 1:22 PM--

GG: rose!

TT: Hello, Jade.  
TT: How goes the hunt for the pumpkin thief?

GG: wellll…  
GG: not great! :O

TT: Oh, dear. What happened? Were you wrong about your coordinate conversion?

GG: no! >:O  
GG: well… i dont think so!  
GG: but something is off even so.

TT: And you believe I may be of some help?  
TT: You know that I have never been as inclined to the scientific arts as you or, say, my mother.

GG: it isnt about the science!  
GG: its just…  
GG: :X

TT: Yes?

GG: do you have any idea why someone living in your house  
GG: FOUR HUNDRED years from now!!  
GG: would want to steal my pumpkins????

TT: Well, well. That certainly is surprising.  
TT: Your data suggests it is someone at this very location?

GG: at your exact coordinates :O

TT: But from four hundred years in the future?

GG: yes!!

TT: I am sorry, Jade, but I have no idea what that could possibly mean.  
TT: It is concerning. Coincidences of this magnitude seem unlikely.

GG: i agree  
GG: well, im going to get back to it, see if i messed up the numbers somewhere

TT: Very well.  
TT: Have a good afternoon, Jade. Keep me apprised if you discover more.

GG: ok! thanks anyway, rose!

\--gardenGnostic [GG] ceased pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] at 1:37 PM--

The mystery of the time and date notwithstanding, you have plenty more to do. You spend the rest of the eighteen months studying everything you can get your hands on about particle and quantum physics. Even the most debunked theories on teleportation are devoured. You have the teleportation pads in your house, you just need to understand their science. You cannibalize several pads and control panels in pursuit of this knowledge.

The nice thing about what you’re doing is that all you need to do is figure out how to hitch a ride on the energy being spent to snatch a pumpkin from your home. You don’t need to send yourself to Rose’s house in the future so much as you need to hitchhike on the Pumpkin Express.

Getting back will be as simple as repeating the process in reverse using the disappearification technology of the rogue who keeps making off with your prized gourds.

The first few times you try sending something along with the pumpkins, nothing happens. Eventually you figure out that you need to boost the energy. Give it some help, like a nice kick to the ass to send it along.

You eventually successfully send a second pumpkin along with the one the thief targets. This takes a lot of patience, because you never know when one of your pumpkins will vanish! But after two successful ride-along pumpkins, you feel pretty good about putting your theories into practice.

It’s time to catch a pumpkin thief.

 

It takes a while to get the timing right but eventually you are waiting next to the right pumpkin at the right time, and bam. You pull the trigger on your portable device and you’re hurled into the space/time continuum for one dazzling second of being nothing and nowhere and never, and then you land on your stomach, sprawling across the floor of a laboratory with your portable hitchhiker jutting uncomfortably into your stomach.

“Holy shit!” someone yells.

You groan and shove yourself up to your knees, groping for your glasses.

“Oh my god, what the fuck is this!” the voice yells again.

You slide the glasses onto your face and stagger to your feet, gathering your wits. After all, this is it! This is the moment you get to see who the asshole from the future is that likes _your_ pumpkins so much!

You whirl to see—

“Rose?!”

But it isn’t Rose, you see that immediately. This girl looks a lot like Rose, but with curly hair instead of straight, and pink eyes instead of purple. She’s wearing a cute little kitten shirt that hangs off her shoulders and shows off her pretty bra straps, over a mini skirt and tights.

“Rose?” the girl repeats, wide-eyed.

“Who are you?” you demand. “Why do you look like Rose? Why are you living in her house? And why the hell do you keep stealing my pumpkins!”

“Do you mean… Rose Lalonde?” the girl asks, breathless.

You didn’t _really_ expect her to know Rose. This is 2414, after all. “Uh… yes! You know Rose?”

“Well, she’s my mom,” the girl says, eyes darting around as though expecting the woman herself to appear any minute.

“What? Rose doesn’t have a daughter!”

“Did you say… _your_ pumpkins?” she demands, diverting attention.

“Yes! You’ve been stealing my pumpkins for years!”

“No, I haven’t! I’ve been stealing _Jake’s_ pumpkins for years!”

“Who is Jake?” you ask, head swimming.

“Who are you?!” she asks, clearly frustrated.

Okay, all this yelling isn’t getting anywhere. New approach. “Uh. Okay. Let’s start over. Hi. I’m Jade. That’s my pumpkin, and I rode along with it from my island in 2017.”

“No way! You’re actually from the past? That’s so cool!” She’s staring at you wide-eyed. “You know my mom?”

“I mean, I know Rose Lalonde! But how can she be your mom if she’s the same Rose? She’s four hundred years in the past!”

“Oh shit, you must not know—”

“Wait,” you say, halting the conversation with your hand up. “First things first. What’s your name?”

“Oh, sorry! Roxy. Roxy Lalonde.”

You pause, thinking. Isn’t that… Rose’s mom’s name? You guess it’s kinda sweet that Rose apparently names her future daughter after her mom, but you didn’t think they were that close.

Roxy invites you to follow her back to her house, where she makes both of you a martini (you’ve never had alcohol before and you don’t think you’re going to like it). After much explanation, you discern the following things:

(1) Roxy is one of only two human beings left alive in 2414, and the other one is Dirk fucking Strider, because of course he is. (You’ve never heard Dave call his Bro anything but “Bro,” but you have a good bet now for what Strider the Elder’s actual name is.)  
(2) Roxy believes your island to be inhabited by a boy named Jake English, but not in 2414. (Indeed, your island in 2414 is below sea level!) She insists that Jake lives on the island during the same years you’ve lived there!  
(3) Roxy’s mom, Rose Lalonde, lived during your era and she doesn’t know how she or Dirk ended up 400 years in the future. Oh and— 

“Complacency of the Learned, you said?” you repeat, feeling faint.

“Yep! Best sellers!”

There’s no way _that’s_ not Rose. You’ve seen her wizard fanfiction. You know she has an entire universe mapped out for Zazzerpan and his cohorts. How…?

“But, Roxy… nobody else lives on my island. And Rose is my age, just 20 years old! She hasn’t published any books yet.”

“In 2017? She should be in her thirties! And have at least two novels in the series out.”

You shake your head.

“Has Dave made any of the _Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff_ movies?” she asks, leaning forward intently.

You feel dizzy. “Movies? No, just, uh. Just the webcomic.”

She shakes her head. “So, Donald Glover is still alive? That’s impossible, all the historical data suggests the waterbitch had him killed in 2015!”

“The who?”

Roxy’s eyes widen even more, which you didn’t think was possible. “You don’t know about… Betty Crocker?”

Wait a minute.

“That bastard,” you murmur.

Roxy nods, like you’re finally talking sense.

You smack a hand to your forehead. “How long have you been planning this?” you ask. Roxy’s nod stops. She looks confused. You roll your eyes. “John put you up to this? You really had me going! I’m impressed. How did you falsify the energy signature on the pumpkins?”

“What?”

You start to laugh. “You can stop now, I get it! Betty Crocker! This is a really impressive prank. Is John here somewhere? Eighteen months… I didn’t think he had it in him to keep a secret that long.”

“I’m telling you, the only people on the whole Earth are me and Dirk,” Roxy says uneasily. “There is no one named John, and this isn’t a joke. It’s my life.”

“But, come on. Betty Crocker? The only person I know who has ever had anything but compliments for the brand’s cakes is John Egbert.”

Roxy starts to show you videos, videos of a woman who looks like Rose but older, and a man who looks like Dave but older, as they talk to show hosts about their latest projects. You read newspaper reports of their deaths. You talk to a boy named Jake and look through his webcam at your island, but it’s… not quite your island. He tells you cheerfully that it’s 2017 for him, but he seems to know about Roxy being from the future. When he mentions his dead grandmother, you ask what her name was, already knowing the answer.

“Jade English!” he says, and you have to walk away.

You figure out that Jane Crocker, Roxy’s other friend from 2017, has a grandfather named John Crocker.

These people are related to you… but also not. How?

You and Roxy eat lunch and speculate. Your best guess is alternate universes. She tells you the history of her Earth, and you tell her that none of the Sea Hitler parts have come true on your planet.

Roxy throws back the last of her martini, then taps her lips thoughtfully. “So, Jade. Have you ever heard of a game called Sburb?”

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this real fast. Lol it was fun. Thanks for reading, kudos and comments always welcome and appreciated!


End file.
